Hundreds of billions of eggs are produced annually in the world. After laying, the eggs are collected and transported to the hatchery and stored there at a low temperature until they are set in the incubator. It may take several days (up to seven days) until the eggs are placed in an incubator. Incubators hold thousands of eggs in a very controlled environment. In an industry of this size, efficient quality control and means for limiting production costs are vital. For example, a significant number of the eggs in a given hatchery are infertile. These eggs consume space and energy within the incubator, and can also cause contamination of other eggs. Usually, at day 16, the eggs are inspected by conventional methods to determine viability. A non-vial egg should be removed from the incubator in order to avoid contamination of other eggs. Thereafter, on the 21st day, the chicks hatch. A number of techniques have been developed for assessing the fertility of unhatched avian eggs.
For example, conventional technologies detect fertility of avian eggs, by using the CO2 that is given off by the chick inside an egg, using MRI, measuring the amount of light transmitted by an egg, measuring modulation of a light signal passing through an egg due to motion, and thermographic methods that measure infrared light emitted by a live egg. Some of the conventional methods are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,310,682, 4,788,427, 4,955,728, 5,696,325, 6,234,320, 6,722,201 and in US Patent Application Publication No. 2015/138,535.
Optical spectroscopic systems use absorption of light to measure egg fertility. Here to, since the blood vessels does not form until about two days after the egg is settled in the incubator, these methods cannot be used even in principle during the first day or two after the egg is settled in the incubator. In a matter of fact, blood vessels and the embryo can be clearly seen after a week in the incubator, and therefore only after this period of time the spectroscopic systems may obtain an effective result.
US Patent Application Publication No. 2003/200,932 issued to Toelken L. Taizo, entitled “Ultrasound quality inspection of avian eggs” discloses a method for making a quality determination in avian eggs, such as relating to fertility or hatching or hatchling viability. The method is performed after laying and before washing. A process line is equipped to process an endless succession of eggs at an early opportunity. The process line has an ultrasound inspection station for the eggs. The ultrasound inspection results are analyzed to make a finding correlatable to the egg's shell quality, which in turn is correlatable to such quality factors as fertility or hatching or hatchling viability. A sorting determination is made based on this analysis as to which output category the egg should be sorted. The output categories might number three or so including qualified premium as for graduation to hatchery operation, not qualified for hatchery but not waste, and flunked because unusable and hence waste. The intermediate category might include graded for pet consumption. The ultrasound inspection is operating on a 200 kHz frequency. The main drawback of ultrasound is that it can only penetrate the surface layer (i.e. very shallow penetration) and even for such penetration it is necessary to have an array of transceivers and receivers to scan a single egg. In addition, ultrasound is slow, the equipment must touch the egg's shell in order to receive the data and on top of that the results are affected by any dirt or other material accumulated on the shell of the egg.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,080 issued to Richard D. Reynnells et al. entitled “Method and apparatus for avian pre-hatch sex determination” discloses a non-invasive method and apparatus for sexing members of the avian species in the egg. The method uses nuclear magnetic resonance to determine whether the live embryo within an egg contains male or female sex organs. The method can further distinguish viable eggs from non-viable eggs. The method provides for sex determination of the embryo after removal from the setter incubation and prior to delivery to the hatching incubators. The apparatus can further sort eggs into a third group comprising eggs which are unusable.
A further procedure includes using a multivariate analysis method for detection of egg fertility. This method is also incapable of monitoring the embryo within the first day after the egg is settled in the incubator. The primary disadvantage of all of the above disclosed methods is that they cannot provide a reliable measure of egg fertility until at least several days after the egg has been settled in the incubator. Further the costs and time required to perform these checks has proven prohibitive. Furthermore, eggs which have been detected as non-fertile during the incubation stage are no longer safe for consumption and need to be discarded.
Even though a fertile egg already contains 40-60,000 cells at the moment of laying, none of the non-invasive methods yet developed can detect egg fertility that early. Thus, a non-invasive method for detecting avian egg fertility on the day of laying, or very soon thereafter, is needed. Moreover, it would be advantageous to have a system and method for determining fertility of eggs before eggs are transported for incubation while avoiding contact with eggs. There is a need for a procedure that may be executed in line and before transferring the eggs to incubators thereby minimizing loss of time, money and productivity.